Yet Another Reason Why The Pope Might Be Resigning

This is relatively tame compared to the actual criminal charges expected to come out of the Los Angeles Catholic Church sex scandals. Even the news that a prominent founder of a religious order was seducing male seminarians and fathering children with two women isn’t unheard of. But the fact that the Vatican knew, yet looked the other way because said founder was recruiting a lot of new priests and large cash donations? Pretty hypocritical. I don’t think the church faithful are going to be all that happy about it:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Documents released Friday shed light on the inner workings of a secretive and now-disgraced Roman Catholic order called the Legion of Christ, including new details on how the organization took control of an elderly woman’s finances and persuaded her to bequeath it $60 million.

The documents, previously sealed in a lawsuit brought before Superior Court in Rhode Island, include thousands of pages of testimony from high-ranking leaders at the Legion, its members and relatives of wealthy widow Gabrielle Mee. They are the first-ever depositions of high-ranking Legion officials and include how the order’s former second-in-command learned in 2006 that its founder had fathered a child.

The No. 2 said he didn’t go public with the news of the paternity because the founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, had already been sanctioned by the Holy See for having sexually abused seminarians and forced into a lifetime of penance and prayer.

Pope Benedict XVI took over the Legion in 2010 after a Vatican investigation determined thatMaciel had lived a double life, including fathering three children by two women. The pope ordered a wholesale reform of the order and named a papal delegate to oversee it.

A Rhode Island Superior Court judge said last year that the documents raised a red flag because Mee, a steadfastly spiritual elderly woman, transferred millions to “clandestinely dubious religious leaders.” But they had been kept under seal until The Associated Press, The New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter and The Providence Journal intervened, arguing that they were in the public interest. The Legion had argued media coverage of the documents could taint prospective jurors if there was a trial.

The Legion scandal is significant because it shows how the Holy See willfully ignored credible allegations of abuse against Maciel for decades while holding him up as a model of sainthood for the faithful because he brought in money and vocations to the priesthood. The scandal, which has tarnished the legacy of Pope John Paul II [Editor’s note: John Paul II is currently on the fast track for sainthood], is the most egregious example of how the Vatican ignored decades of reports about sexually abusive priests because church leaders put the interests of the institution above those of the victims.

Mary Lou Dauray had alleged that her aunt, Mee, who died at age 96 in 2008, was defrauded by the Legion and unduly influenced by its priests into giving away her fortune. Her late husband was a onetime director of Fleet National Bank.

The Legion said that it didn’t exert undue influence over her decision-making and that the gifts were made of her own will.